New Survey Reveals Poor E-Waste Recycling Rates in the U.S.

SEATTLE (Scrap Monster): The recent survey conducted during the month of April this year by Arris Composites reveals the poor awareness level for electronics sustainability among U.S. consumers.

Although 86% of the respondents claimed that sustainability is a top priority for them, the numbers suggest that they tend to recycle their old electronic items only if they could do it easily. Surprisingly one-fourth of the participants said that they throw used electronics, including old phones and computers directly into the garbage as they find it hard to recycle them.

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Nearly 60% of the respondents said that electronics sustainability is important for them. However, one out of three has never even thought about electronics sustainability. Also, 42% doesn’t even bother to find places to recycle old electronics. 16% had no time to find out where to recycle them, while 21% were not aware that electronics could be recycled. Furthermore, 9 out of 10 people were unaware of e-waste laws in their area.

As per the survey, nearly 45% have never recycled any electronics. 56% said that recycling electronics was hard for them, whereas 88% noted that they would recycle electronics if it was easier.

The frequent upgrading of electronics, especially cell phones and laptops, has resulted in generation of huge e-waste volumes, the survey report said.